Crypto Society Ama Recap with Double Zero — 23rd January 2025
DoubleZero is a new blockchain protocol designed to enhance the performance and efficiency of blockchain networks by significantly reducing latency and increasing bandwidth.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Welcome @austin_federa, it’s our pleasure to have you with us today. I would like to welcome you here on behalf of our entire community.
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Hey folks 🙂
₿ilo | Crypto Society
HEY AUSTIN
Could we begin with a brief history of yourself and your team, and your role at Double Zero for those that don’t already know you, what you were doing before & How Double Zero started, and what primary problems it aims to solve in the crypto space?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
For sure — also apologies I thought this was audio/video, so I did not pretype anything
DoubleZero begins at the earliest stage with the Firedancer project, which was an effort to build a new validator client for Solana from the ground up. One of the things that we realized through that process was building a high-performance validator client is hard, but it is just work. The thing that was going to be difficult was the network layer.
What I mean by that is that the Internet was never built for high performance, it was built entirely for global reach, and it does a really good job of that. But when you start looking at any high-performance system, you realize they all run on private fiber and private fiber is not an acceptable solution if it is run by one central company in the Blockchain space. So, the thing we set out with the mission of was to create a network that had all of the advantages of private fiber and high-performance high frequency, trading networks but is run by a diverse group of contributors and has the type of checks and balances and assurances you would expect from a Crypto project.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Quite the undertaking
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Yeah — we joke it’s crypto’s first infrastructure project.
That includes things like knowing exactly what path packets are taking, economic security, cryptographic security, and transparency.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
How was your departure met across the Solana community?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
So, I’ve spent the last four years at Sloan Labs and then the Slough of Foundation and I had a bunch of different roles over my time there. I still think it’s the network best equipped to usher in the future I think we all are building towards self-custody solutions a global decentralized market. I like that Solana has not compromised on decentralization to meet scale and I think this project has been pretty well received by everyone as something necessary to hit 1 million let alone 10,000,000 transactions per second.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
That kind of TPS is coming especially with what you’re building
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
In terms of how the departure was received, I mean, I obviously told Solana leadership about my plans and desire to go build this thing and so we managed a good responsible transition, and I think overall it’s been well received because it’s a problem set that many people have faced
There’s also this idea that any of us are irreplaceable that I push back against. It’s probably true in the early stages but at this point, even if Solana lost Anatoly to illness or retirement or something it would be fine the same way Ethereum would be fine if Vitalik gets hit by a bus.
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
*anatoly
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Hope everyone stays healthy and safe
We need you all
Let’s get into the meat of it. How does DoubleZero address the issue of bandwidth and latency in blockchain networks?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Absolutely — DoubleZero makes use of existing and new private fiber. This is something that lots of companies run nowadays — as I was saying before most big companies use this. Right now, there’s a real latency and jitter issue wrt to this stuff
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Are you renting this infra?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Jitter and latency are two major issues preventing fast blockchains from being able to hit millions of transactions.
So, we ourselves are not ‘running’ the doublezero network ourselves — any more than Solana Foundation is running Solana — it’s made up of network links owned or leased by others.
So, the same way in, say, Solana, you as a validator lend your compute resources to transaction processing, these DoubleZero ‘validators’ are lending their fiber lines to data transmission and filtration.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Can we say that the decentralized infra landlords for lack of a better word, whether they own or rent that infra are monetizing their contribution to DoubleZero then? If so, how are they monetizing?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Yeah, so, validators and RPCs operating on the network will pay a percentage of their earnings to the network. At that point there’s a burn mechanism similar to Solana and Ethereum, with the remainder being distributed to DoubleZero network providers are rewards.
We’ll be publishing more of the math and economics behind this in the coming weeks.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Very exciting -
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
I can give you a little bit of alpha though.
Today 4 Solana mainnet validators are operating on the DoubleZero testnet
₿ilo | Crypto Society
I can imagine a scenario where there is a spec bid process to expand the network where there is a need. Is this something that’s part of the plans? I get that you don’t run it or rent it. My question is, will you outline needs and market the opportunity to those who would?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
So, blockchains will need to adapt to some of the DZ technology and also raise their limits as this new capacity allows. Those conversations are for protocol contributors and stakeholders to have and not something we need to be involved in.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
I understand. Thanks
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
On the DoubleZero side, we’ll have minimum requirements (right now it’s 10gbps of bidirectional data) that will evolve over time.
Plus, you need to run the FPGA tech.
But the cool thing is the network will qualify in new links automatically and adjust the route maps to respond to new routes that are added.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Can DoubleZero ensure the decentralization and censorship resistance of its network? Or will that be as good as the base chain utilizing it?
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Permissionless joining for validators is easy — the hardest part about doublezero over the next year is permissionless network link contributions. That’s a sticky problem because it’s in the real world.
Okay …so compute is a comparable good
Hash power from Boston is just as good as hash power from Germany
That’s not the case with DoubleZero, 100gb of bandwidth in NYC does nothing for someone in Dubai.
Therefore the censorship resistance of any connection point needs to be computed on a location-by-location basis — the more independent contributors are bringing data in, the more decentralized.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Gotcha
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
BUT — and this is huge — today you have a censorship resistance of 1 in every validator in existence.
Even the Raspberry Pi boys on eth — they’re beholden to Verizon or ATT or their local ISP. If they pull the plug, you’re offline.
With DoubleZero (in its mature state) there will be multiple options.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Please explain this further
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
Yeah — so how many internet connections do you have at your house?
₿ilo | Crypto Society
1
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
For 99.99999% of people, the answer is one.
If we are counting the entities that can censor you, it’s one.
They have $2m routers that can inspect all your packets and even decrypt your traffic in some cases, and front-run your trades.
Now, ISPs are not doing that today, obviously, but it’s a risk no one talks about.
Yeah — no one thinks about how like, companies run the internet/.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Great point. I’m a little worried now
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
We sort of saw this in 2020 when CloudFlare kicked parlor and other social media networks offline for content they objected to — but itcoudl came back.
Especially in Europe where MiCA is changing things quickly.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
That’s a lot to think about — thanks — sleepless nights coming…
Austin Federa | DoubleZero
We want as many business-grade connections into doublezero as possible to create as much censorship resistance as possible.
Absolutely- apologies I have a hard out, but really appreciate the time today 🙏
₿ilo | Crypto Society
You have to go?
Thanks @austin_federa appreciate your time
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